Playing Catch Up

Howdy, ya'll,

I sometimes wonder what type of person I'd be had I grown up in the southern climes of the U.S. instead of the quasi-tundra of North Dakota. Would I be saying, "Yau'w," after every other sentence like Paula Dean--or would I be more of a "breakfast at 10:00" tight-drawling, mid-south sophisticate? I know I'd be saying, "Hauwdy," a lot when meeting folks; it tends to spill off the lips like a rotten Avacado chucked against a white stucco wall in Phoenix during the dead heat of early August. But as for getting caught up with post processing and uploading galleries at my web site, "I'm so far back in the dog-house, my baby's gotta shoot me biscuits with a sling-shot."

Yes, this is the time of the Winter sports season where playing catch-up is the norm. The boys basketball game between Fargo North and West Fargo is uploading even as I type (geez...that one's from all the way back on Dec 22nd, 2009), and next on the docket is the girls hockey game between Fargo South and Minot. By late week, I'll see which of the 3 girls basketball games left to post process is next. It grieves me to be such a laggard, but there's an enormous amount of time required for indoor sports. If I had a Mission Statement for my business, it would would be something to the effect of, "Every photo I post online must be of a high enough quality that I'd be proud to hang each and every one on my own wall." And because of that statement, I 'touch' each picture to crop, straighten, white balance correct, color correct, de-noise, adjust luminance, and finally sharpen. Only at the end of this regimen do I decide whether or not the pic is a keeper. There are a host of photographers that would say I'm nuts for going to this extreme with each and every pic, but I beg to differ. I've seen many photogs post pics online that look like garbage, with the hollow promise of doing the above work on a pic only after the sale. My contention is: do you just use your imagination as to how this 'garbage' will be resurrected after the sale? Nope! Not on my watch.   :)

So...I'll be shooting the Devils Lake lady Firebirds basketball team in action at Fargo North this weekend. This is by request, so I'll shoot the entire Firebirds lineup as always, but I have a special player to keep an eye on and 'load up' as much as the action allows on that particular individual. That's how requests work for me. Perhaps I shouldn't be using the word, "request" as I have been, when really, I think of it more as an "invitation" to shoot. I know some folks hedge on sending me these requests because they then feel obligated to purchase whether they like the resultant pics or not. This couldn't be farther from the truth. I LOVE shooting sports; every darn game is a magical sequence of athletes in action, with my camera/lens there to hopefully capture precious moments that will never occur again in that exact same way. Parental or athlete requests (umm...I mean invitations) simply direct me to which of the 20 games in a week's time I should attend. Deep down inside, I guess I am hoping for a 'payment' of sorts, and that's in the form of the requesting parent simply letting other parents (by word of mouth and/or email) know of my site and the game I shot. It saddens me to see some of the best captured moments for some athletes go unseen by family, friends, or loved ones--simply because they had no idea such pics existed. My site is not a, "build it and they will come" structure. So please--spread the word!

I'll bid "All Yau,w" (another Paula Dean 'Catskills in motion' compound verbal bomb) a good rest of the week, and I'll try to keep up with this blog on a more regular basis. You can return back to my site (or go there if you're linked directly to this blog) here. Don't be shy; feel free to email me here.

Dank Sie,
Don